Modding on the Spectrum

Yesterday I bought an external blu-ray writer, primarily to watch blu-ray movies on my notebook. I also bought two movies: “Venom: The Last Dance” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”. Today I tried out the device and found that the movie blu-rays are not played by the VLC media player by default because they are encrypted. In order for the VLC media player to play these blu-rays, two files have to be downloaded and packed into the corresponding directories. I found instructions and download links here. To make the blu-ray menu work, please follow these steps (further explanations can be found in the comments to the instructions). By the way, VLC crashes when reading the blu-ray if newer builds of the JRE and JDK of Java are installed (331 - 341) - with build 321 there are no problems. The blu-ray menu is controlled via the keyboard (arrow keys to navigate and the return key to confirm).

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I found a PlayStation 3 on a walk in the early hours of the morning. It was in an abandoned shopping trolley along with odds and ends like plates. It works except for the disc drive (it no longer pulls in discs). Luckily, there is the PlayStation Store to buy games digitally. I created the account for the store and was able to log in to the store on the PlayStation successfully. I haven't downloaded a game yet. To get a feel for the controller, I will try a demo soon (the last time I had a controller in my hand was many years ago). Incidentally, the PS3 is my first non-handheld console (I still own a Game Boy Pocket).

Edit:

It turns out that someone put 4 discs and two coins into the disc drive. After I got these things out, the drive can now pull discs in. Unfortunately, it can't read them. I believe the laser is broken. A factory reset didn't solve the problem.

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The data export of the family magazine's event calendar went smoothly. We were even able to export the data a day earlier than planned. I was also able to get more sleep.

The next data exports are on April 4 and 10. Before I go back to my mother's, I want to make further progress with my preparations for the move. My mother suggested that we sort out clothes together next weekend so that I can get rid of unnecessary clutter before I move (one day).

As soon as I got home tonight, the trouble with the neighbor resumed (it was about his DIY again). But I only got verbally upset for a short time. I'll deal with the rest of my anger in my diary. I hadn't written anything in there for a long time (last time in November 2024).

In the time I was with mom, I managed to take several walks. The longest one was to the city center with a length of 6 km (about 3.7 miles) - I went back by bus.

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The last three weeks have been very stressful again. Not only did two family magazines have to be completed, but I also had to take over the work of the colleague who the boss had recently fired. To make matters worse, as you may already know, I was very sleep deprived.

In order to get at least a little more sleep, I spent another week at my mum's to work in her flat. The week before last, I worked 5 hours on Saturday and 5 hours on Sunday to catch up on the work that had been left undone during the days of extreme sleep deprivation (in some cases, I only made progress at a snail's pace). By last week Thursday, I had to have entered all the data from the event organisers (I take care of the event calendars for the family magazines). The highest number was 49 e-mails of varying lengths (from 1 page to over 20 pages). To cut a long story short: despite the stress, I managed to enter all the events in the events calendar.

To recover a little, I asked my boss for a day off, which I wanted to take last Friday. However, as I was needed on Friday for queries regarding the corrections, I took this Monday off instead. It was actually good that I had the day off on Monday, because then I had another day to get used to my own bed again (I wasn't back home until Sunday evening) and my ‘dear’ neighbour.

Only one family magazine has to be finished next month (the publishing house produces three family magazines; two are published in one month and the third in the following month). Let's see if this production is less stressful.

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Happy Birthday!

We should have thrown a party. Never pass up an excuse for a party!

And so my birthday comes to an end. It was an eventful day. I had a sushi bowl for breakfast. Then I played Starfield for a few hours. In the afternoon, my buddy picked me up and we drove to the restaurant. The food was good and very plentiful. I didn't finish it all and had the rest wrapped up (I'll probably eat it for breakfast tomorrow). After dinner we went shopping. On the way back to the car, we saw a guy writing down the license plate number of my buddy's car. My buddy and I had forgotten to put the parking disk inside. Luckily the guy was lenient and we didn't have to pay a fee (which would have been 25 euros). It happened when we were pulling out of the parking space: my buddy turned the steering wheel too early and briefly hit the steel pillar. We got off with a scare. There were "only" scratches in the car's paintwork and a small hole in the mudguard. To calm ourselves down, we later watched a funny movie on streaming, Dolittle with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role.

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We now have 100 members! Let's celebrate


I went to the store where I bought the monitor and replaced it with a flawless one. I was allowed to check the new model for pixel errors in the store. It's a good thing that I took out insurance for the device at the time, because the normal warranty would not have covered the defect.

I decided to stay with my mum for a few days longer.

It was only today that I noticed the dead pixel at the top right of the screen of the new monitor when I was watching a video. Now I'm wondering whether I should exchange the monitor for another model or live with it. If I decide to replace it, I run the risk that the other device will also be faulty. How common are dead pixels? Or should I return the monitor and buy a slightly more expensive model instead (hoping that the other manufacturer has better quality control)? The original price of the monitor was around 100 euros (it was on sale and cost around 20 euros less). I bought this monitor, a Philips. I'm glad that my main monitor at home, an ASUS, doesn't have any dead pixels.

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Because of my neighbour, I have temporarily moved my home office to my mother's flat. It always gets stressful in the middle of the month as far as my work is concerned. This is because all the data we receive from event organisers has to be entered into the event calendar by a deadline. I was normally in my home office during this time. I haven't been able to work in my flat for several months because of the constant noise pollution. That's why I now work almost exclusively in the office and very rarely work from home. Now my work in the office is also in danger because I hardly get any sleep (because the neighbour has also been making noise at night for some time). My mother's neighbours are also loud, but I'm not so badly triggered by their noise and they are mostly quiet at night. As long as the situation at my home doesn't change (or as long as I don't have a new flat), I'll probably visit her more often and do my work in her flat.

I asked her if I was burdening her with this, but she denied it. She said I was her daughter and that she was my tower of strength. I was very touched by this.

Today we bought a monitor and a keyboard to make my work easier (the screen of my work notebook is quite small). She might also use the monitor when I'm away (Edit: She has decided against it). Then I won't have to set everything up and take it down all the time.


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Happy birthday, Altbert!